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The days of the metal filing cabinet may be numbered as companies are increasingly turning to electronic means for capturing and storing information. For Steelcase, a company who earned its reputation in the market for its metal filing cabinets, it’s time to change its identity. Now that the company’s 100 year anniversary has arrived; what better time to re-launch its image?

This NPR (News - Alert) report highlighted the company’s celebration and those in the call center space can certainly benefit. Steelcase was once Michigan’s largest employer, with 21,000 workers worldwide in 2001. With a change in focus, Steelcase will bring its passion to call center furniture in a new way.

While creating call center furniture may not be your first thought when you consider celebrations, Jeremy Bergwerff, a 30-year old employee with the company, has a different take. He shared with NPR that Steelcase is not as much about creating furniture as it is about creating the right environment.

The concept of creating the right environment is essential within the call center industry as companies are increasingly cognizant of the need to create a healthy culture in which their employees work. It’s important to blend motivating colors, ergonomic call center furniture and pleasing aesthetic designs into the call center to promote a positive culture. 

In fact, Steelcase does not consider its core focus to be furniture, but instead human insights. The call center furniture manufacturer wants to focus on the importance of its people when creating new designs or bringing new products to market. According to CEO, Jim Hackett, it was this approach to business that led to the creation of the first fire-proof metal wastebasket.

Why? If you think about the working environment in 1912, white collar workers were often chain smoking around mostly wooden furniture and lots of paper – it was a fire waiting to happen. Putting a little metal into the mix was just good common sense.

Not that long ago, office furniture – and especially call center furniture – came in just three colors: battleship grey, brown and olive green. When you take human insight into account, you want Blond Tan or Desert Sage or even Mist Green. In the call center environment, human insight says you don’t want rows and rows of cubicles. The environment needs to be conducive to the individuals working there and the work they are trying to accomplish.